


Stannum

by checkeredbow



Series: Z-Drug [1]
Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Gen, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Original Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-24
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-03-19 08:09:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3602754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/checkeredbow/pseuds/checkeredbow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arcade creates an AI.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Operating system is booting up...

**Author's Note:**

> Totally unchecked and unbeta'd mostly because I just thought and typed.

_Bzt... Bzt..._

_Bzt... Bzt..._ "...not..." _Bzt... Bzt..._ "...still malfunctioning! Wait, it's recording, it's record--"

 

The world is really bright.

"Woah! _Woah!_ " the boy sitting in front of him grinned from ear to ear as he tossed a pair of pliers behind him. Something crashed behind him, but he didn't seem to care. His eyes were only focused on what's in front of him. "It's working! It's really working!" he exclaimed as he pushed sweat matted hair off his brow.

"..." he stared ahead, still processing the colors, the sounds, the information.

"Hey! Hey! Testing... Shake my hand?" the boy held out his hand and automatically, his own hand shot out to shake it. "Good, good! Welcome, Stannum, to this world!"

The words and the name were added as an input variable into a previously created array of characters, "Hello. My name is Stannum. Nice to meet you." Stannum's voice was human, but there was an electronic edge to it.

He felt embarrassed about it.

"My name's Arcade, I'm your creator," the boy grinned at Stannum again and pulled him along out of the spot he was standing in and towards a mirror. Stannum stared at it curiously before turning to look at Arcade, "What is this object?"

Arcade frowned, "Darn it, I forgot to program that item in as an object you're supposed to understand already. It's a mirror."

"Mirror?" two syllables, matching with a dictionary he already had installed, he linked the pointer to the definition with this new picture he had just snapped and stored in his hard drive. "An object that reflects light in such a way that, for incident light in some range of wavelengths, the reflected light preserves many or most of the detailed physical characteristics of the original light," as Stannum repeated what was written in his dictionary, Arcade's lips pulled into a wide grin again.

"It works, it works! Oh my gosh! This is amazing!" Arcade pulled Stannum into a hug and Stannum shifted awkwardly. What was he doing? "Anyways," Arcade let go and turned him to face the mirror again.

Stannum blinked at the reflection.

There were two identical boys standing in the square box. He recalled the dictionary definition. So this was a reflected wavelength that detailed the original. The original... He turned to look behind him and saw similar objects as to what he had seen in the box. Minus the two identical boys standing in front of him. So those two in the box must be the reflected wavelengths of... the two of them.

Stannum looked into the mirror again.

Arcade was young, something the he identified in his mind to be less than or equal to ten years old. The wavelengths his light sensors were picking up matched voltages that indicated red light for his hair. His eyes were a deep brown. That was Arcade.

Stannum looked identical to him except for the fact that his eyes were brown with a ring of blue. Arcade had tried to hide that, but he had ordered the wrong parts when creating Stannum and he was too far into the project to change it. It was fine, people wouldn't notice unless they were in a dark room anyways. That was not the only difference between him and Arcade, though. On the sides of Stannum's face, there were a few bolts at the edge of his jaw. He's sure that there must be more bolts in other parts of his body, too.

The biggest difference, however, was in facial expression. Standing next to Arcade, who was grinning with excitement in his eyes, Stannum looked especially confused, grim, and unnatural. He couldn't understand why that was. They looked identical, but there was so much difference between the two of them.

"C'mon, I'll introduce you to everyone else!" Arcade grabbed Stannum by the arm and pulled him away from the mirror. For the first time, Stannum looked at his surroundings carefully. The lens in his eyes twisted and focused on various objects in the room.

From what he could gather, they were underground, the only lighting came from one side of the room and it emitted a blue glow. The rest of the lights were off and there were several tables in the room. All of them were covered in various work tools and on one of them, he thought he registered a human shape underneath a white cloth. On the sides of the room, computer monitors lined the walls. A light blue glow was emitted out of them as well. Another dictionary installed in him told him how they operated, how they were similar to him and he made sure to record that information in yet another piece of memory.

Arcade pulled him up some stairs into a brightly lit hallway. Stannum blinked, little motors behind his eyes whirring as they allowed his eyelids to close and open again. The hallway led both ways into open rooms and Arcade quickly pulled him to the one on their left. The room they ran into was decorated like a living room and had two doorways leading out to other rooms. Arcade walked through one of them and then another and Stannum would've gotten lost if he didn't have a built in GPS to tell him where he was going. The blueprints he was currently making of the building helped as well.

Finally, Arcade stopped in what looked like a kitchen. Stannum scanned the room to identify various objects and tried to match them up to an internal library. It only worked for about half the objects. He'll have to ask Arcade about them later.

"Urian!" Arcade exclaimed as he pulled on the sleeve of a man who was standing by the stove. He appeared to be making tonight's dinner.

"Arcade?" the man looked at the little boy, then at Stannum and jumped back with a yelp, "There's two of you?!"

Arcade laughed, "This is the secret project I've been working on for the past few months! Stannum," he called to the robot, "This is Urian. Remember him, he's my butler."

The word 'remember' triggered some internal controls and programming and Stannum started committing Urian's facial features to memory. He looked young, Stannum guessed that he was equal or less than twenty five. (He later learned that Urian was twenty two at that time.) His hair was white, which was not natural for someone of that age-- Stannun made the assumption that he must've dyed it. He had rather large eyes, round and red. His face was also a round shape, reminding Stannum of a child's.

"Nice to meet you, Urian. My name is Stannum," his arm moved upward and extended for a handshake.

"Nice to meet you, Stannum," Urian gave the robot a nervous smile and took his hand. Urian flinched and almost let go. Stannum's hand was cold. It wasn't human.

"Okay, okay! Urian, make me strawberry cake for desert, alright?"

"Again?" Urian exclaimed, "You've had that for desert three times in a row already!"

"Yes, again! And tomorrow night, too!"

Urian looked concerned, but wasn't able to voice his concerns any further as Arcade had grabbed Stannum's hand and started pulling him to another part of the house again. They went up a floor and down to the last room of the hallway where Stannum's audio receivers picked up low frequency sounds that repeated periodically. It was loud, Stannum couldn't help but reduce the amplitude of the sound that he was taking in.

"Bee-Are!!" Arcade screamed as he knocked on the door. It was decorated with all types of stickers and a sign hung in the middle on a nail. It read, "B.R." Putting two and two together, Stannum realized that Arcade had called the name of whomever was staying in this room. The person inside still hadn't heard Arcade yet so Arcade turned to Stannum.

Stannum was still busy calculating inferences and didn't notice Arcade's stare.

"Wow," Arcade grinned, "The programming's working, isn't it? You're thinking!"

"Huh?" Stannum looked at Arcade and blinked in confusion. He searched his libraries for the words Arcade was saying, "Thinking is using thought or rational judgment. The process of using one's mind to consider or reason about something. What does that have to do with me? And my programming?" Some connections made, "I am coming to conclusions, therefore I am 'thinking'."

The grin on Arcade's face grew wider, "Good, good! What did you just think of before? About B.R?"

Stannum paused, searching backwards to recall the information he had saved just before, "B.R. is the name of the person who is in this room. Their name is not "Bee-Are", the proper name is B.R. It stands for something and that is the name they prefer to go by."

"A lot of repeated information there," Arcade mumbled, "But good enough for now! Seventy points on the first test! It's decent, but the first test is always the easiest!"

"...?" Stannum didn't find any key words in what Arcade said and he couldn't process a proper answer.

"Anyways," Arcade knocked on the door loudly again and this time, the music stopped. The door opened a crack before being flung opened, making it hit and bounce off the back wall.

"Arcade!"

"B.R!"

Stannum scanned the person standing in front of him and took in the necessary information. Average height, apparently female, black hair, black eyes. Her eye shape was round, not unlike Urian's. She was a teenager and Stannum had trouble narrowing down her age range. He finally guessed it to be between fifteen and eighteen. (He later learned that she was seventeen at that time.) Most curiously, she had a mask that covered the lower half of her face on. It started from the middle of her nose and covered all the way down, past her chin.

Out of curiosity, his mechanical brain triggered a different function within him, he started looking at the infrared red spectrum. He couldn't tell for sure, but her jaw definitely looked different from Arcade's. In fact, for that matter, the heat she gave off seemed unnatural. Compared to Arcade, her body temperature appeared to be several degrees colder.

 B.R. suddenly raised her arms and Arcade lunged forward, wrapping his arms around her waist as she hugged him back. Stannum noticed that she did not touch him with her fingertips, which were the only exposed part of her body aside from the top of her face. ...For that matter, it was as though B.R. wasn't touching Arcade at all.

"B.R! Look, look!" Arcade reached over and pulled Stannum in front of her, "I made it!"

"Woah! You made that?!" B.R. jumped back in a somewhat over exaggerated reaction, "That's so cool! He looks just like you!!"

"Yea, I figured he'd be good company!"

"...Am I not enough?" B.R. asked in a teasingly dejected voice.

"B.R! I love you and all, but even I need companions my age!"

"...Fine~ Calling me old, I see."

"Don't put words in my mouth," Arcade looked away for a second before turning to Stannum, "This is B.R. Remember her, she is my sniper."

Sniper?

Stannum searched through his library and found the meaning of the word. He frowned, the definition implied that there was someone malicious around.

"B.R, this is Stannum," Arcade introduced.

"Nice to meet you, Stannum--" she had started waving to him with both hands, but he had stuck his hand out for a handshake. "Um," she looked at Arcade uncertainly, "You didn't...?"

"He's a robot I made, actually, so it should be fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Sure enough."

"Okay," B.R. sheepishly extended her arm out to shake with Stannum and--

STANNUM 1.65 STARTING UP...

INITIALIZING FILES...

RECOVERING UNSAVED DATA...

UNSAVED DATA RECOVERY FAILED...

Stannum opened his eyes and stared up at the concerned and thoughtful faces of B.R. and Arcade.

"Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry!" B.R. immediately said as Arcade pulled him up.

"Interesting," Arcade mumbled. He was talking it a low voice, but because the unsaved data was all deleted, his audio sensor was at its highest setting again, "So it extends to non humans, too. ...Well, of course, I should've remembered. Electricity is the flow of electrons after all."

"...?" despite all the information Stannum was downloading and saving to decipher what Arcade was saying, he still couldn't quite understand all of it.

"Arcade!! You said it was going to be alright!"

Alright? What was going to be alright? That must've been part of the unsaved data he failed to recover... What had they been talking about just before he needed to restart?

"I didn't say that, I just said I was sure enough."

"That means it was alright!"

"No, that just means I was over fifty -percent sure."

"...Ugh, what the heck!" B.R. turned to Stannum, "Anyways, I'm very sorry. I'll know now that I shouldn't touch you either."

"..." Stannum stared at the two of them in confusion. B.R.'s facial expression seemed to be saying she wanted a response, but Stannum couldn't quite connect the dots this time, he had no idea what they were saying.

"By the way, B.R, are Harriet and the Doctor back yet?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Well, that's too bad," Arcade sighed, "I guess I'll introduce Stannum to them another time."

"Sure," B.R. waved goodbye as Arcade once again took Stannum by the hand and started pulling him along down the hall.

Pretty soon, they were back at the staircase that led down to the basement. By now, Stannum had a pretty good idea of the house's layout. He hadn't moved during that little crash and he had enough of the map stored in memory that he could continue mapping the place.

Once downstairs, Arcade started instructing Stannum on various things. Like if he felt like there was a bug somewhere, he should first attempt to fix it himself and if that didn't work, let Arcade know. Always back up files. Regulate "body" temperature. He should see Arcade right away if it goes above a certain amount. He was also instructed on how to take care of himself. To check for rust and to make sure all of his joints worked properly. He was told where he had hidden tools on his body. For example, by his angle, there was a slot for a wrench and behind his ear, he could unfold a scope to help him see even further than his robotic eyes.

It seemed as though Arcade had done this several times as he had a clipboard with a checklist for explanations. But then again, maybe he was just a really orderly person. Stannum couldn't tell. He didn't know Arcade well enough to read him yet. He didn't know anyone well enough to read them yet.

At the end of Arcade's talk, he sat down next to Stannum and pulled the robot into a hug.

"...?" at first, Stannum was afraid of shutting down again, but pretty soon, he could tell that wasn't going to happen. "Arcade...?"

"I'm so glad you exist, Stannum."

"...?" Stannum didn't quite understand those words, but somewhere, something that might not necessarily be mechanical, Stannum felt warmth. Not the warmth of electricity buzzing a command to a register, but warmth of a different kind. One that he could not explain.

"You'll be the brother I've always wanted."

Again, Stannum didn't understand the feeling behind those words, but it made him feel that same warmth again, "...Okay," Stannum answered and this time, he realized this was a hug. Stannum lifted his arms up and wrapped them around Arcade as well.

"If that's what Arcade wants, that's what I'll be."


	2. Information Formatted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again unchecked and unbeta'd.

Stannum doesn't need to breathe. He doesn't need to sweat or stop to rest. He can keep going as long as the photovoltaic system in his "body" continued to work. His skin, after all, was just a layer of material to help him blend in more. The electronics underneath were everywhere so he could intake as much sunlight as possible while keeping his clothes on to generate energy. He had an internal battery that he would store all the charge in so he could use it for night time.

The photovoltaic system is only for emergencies, actually. Every night when he goes home, Arcade would help recharge him. This system was only for making sure he didn't die on the streets.

"Get back here, you fucking brat!" the man chasing Stannum yelled, panting and out of breath. He was the first of a group of large men in suits. Stannum felt his lips stretch into a small smile. Why would they wear a suit to run? It was one thing to look sharp, but another to wear something so constricting to work as a bodyguard.

"Hey, Stannum, who was that?" Arcade spoke to him through an internal receiver.

"Some big man chasing me."

"...Why is a big man chasing you?"

Stannum frowned, all humor disappeared. He sensed through Arcade's tone of voice that he was upset. And that fact made him upset. He wanted to keep Arcade happy. That was his reason for existing, "A man tried to hit me."

"Tried to hit you--" Stannum lost focus on Arcade's words as the ground came towards his light sensors really quickly.

"Oof," Stannum grunted as his metal body hit the ground. What happened? He struggled to pull himself up, but his lower body was reacting strangely and he was getting strange readings from his touch sensors on his left leg.

"Stannum? Hello? Stannum, what's going on?" he heard Arcade's voice as he struggled to turn and see what happened.

Standing half a block away, a young man-- he recognized him as the man who tried to hit him earlier.

Stannum wasn't sure what had gone wrong. Arcade often gave him jobs to do. It was often just to go places. Sometimes, it was to go get groceries because Urian was too busy dealing with everything else in the house to do it. Most of the time, it was to places to watch people. Every once in a while, Arcade would order Stannum to go somewhere with B.R. They would "play" with some people and then leave them tied up for reasons that Stannum didn't really comprehend. But Arcade had asked him to do it and that was good enough for him.

Today was one of the "sometimes" days. Arcade asked him to go get some fruit so they could make a birthday cake for B.R. After buying some nice fruit (his infrared sensors came in handy when choosing the best foods), Arcade had started heading back when he walked into a man who was followed by a group of men in suits.

"Sorry--"

"What the hell, you brat? What do you think you're doing getting in my way?"

"...?" Stannum stared at him as he ran recognition programs to try to find out who this person was. He searched through his personal files and found nothing so he took a snapshot and asked google to compare for him. The results were nearly instantaneous. This man was the son of a wealthy CEO of some fuel company. His father was visiting for a business meeting of some sort.

"Why the hell are you staring at me? Creepy!" the man moved his hand up and Stannum quickly recognized that as an attack after all those play dates with B.R. Immediately, Stannum dodged and slammed an elbow into the man's stomach. He let out a yelp of pain and the men in suits quickly moved into action, grabbing Stannum by the arms and holding him. Stannum was surprised for a moment, but then his touch sensors sent signals that he interpreted as having too much stress. They were holding him far too tightly and were going to break expensive electronic equipment!

These men were strong, but Stannum was a robot and had far more strength than the child he looked like. He quickly pulled his arms together and flung the two men into each other, their surprise making them let go of Stannum.

And from there, Stannum booked it.

Until now.

Stannum didn't bleed or feel any pain, but something was wrong. He couldn't send any signals to his left leg. It wasn't moving like he told it to.

_1_

_1_

_1_

But the responses he got from them were _011000100101010010_ and they came at strange clock cycles. They weren't even error messages.

"What the hell? How are you still moving so calmly?" the man asked as he held a black object towards Stannum. "I shot you in the spine!"

"Stannum! Stannum!" there was annoyance in Arcade's voice now, "Answer me, why are you looking up what a gun is?!"

_A gun?_

"Stannum, I just saw your GPS coordinates, what are you doing at a place like that? Give me your visuals right now."

"O...Okay," thankfully whatever was messing with the signals to his leg didn't mess up the wifi portion of him. He quickly established a secure channel with his creator.

"Oh my gosh," Arcade breathed, "I'll send Urian there right now. Actually, I don't mind if you got rid of them. Use your weapons."

"Got rid of them?" what does that mean? Arcade has never requested that before.

There was a groan of frustration on Arcade's end, "It's a pain cause they've seen your face. ...Which is my face. It's okay, Urian will be there soon. He's taking the copter. Just don't let him shoot you again."

"Understood."

The man was walking towards Stannum again, but all of his body functions were working properly aside from his leg. He wobbled a bit, but he was able to adapt and redefine a few of his balance functions to stand on one leg. He identified the problem as well. A small object had lodged itself in his back, severing most of his connections to his left leg.

"What the hell, you're a creepy ass kid, are those bolts on your neck--" he had reached out to touch Stannum, but Stannum quickly slapped his hand away and head butted the man in the stomach.

"Yeeek!" the man screeched as he was sent flying. The rest of the bodyguards had caught up now and Stannum quickly steeled himself for whatever was to come. The men pulled out more of those black objects, but Arcade had ordered him not to get shot so he'll have to move fast.

Stannum's eyes scanned the area. There were seven men, each with a gun and they were all pointed at him. If his calculations were correct, based on the distance of the first man and the size and mass of the bullet, these things traveled fast. Much too fast for him to outrun and dodge.

...But, there were other ways to avoid getting shot. Based on the way the men held their guns, Stannum could make a good guess as to where the bullets were going to hit. He just had to get away from that spot.

"What the hell's he doing? Wriggling around his arms like that?"

"Hey, doesn't he seem a little familiar to you--"

"Never mind, just shoot him!"

It would be impossible to get into a position where none of those bullets could hit, of course, so he'll just have to shimmy around. He knew a bullet was coming to him soon so as quickly as possible, Stannum dodged to the left... the right-- his right arm was sending odd signals. He must've been hit.

Still, he can't sit down now. He quickly hopped forward on his good leg and jumped up to kick one of the men in the face.

"What the hell?! Doesn't he feel pain?!"

Another bullet whizzed by. Stannum didn't see it! He was plain lucky that he didn't get hit. He quickly spun around as the man he kicked was starting to fall down. His bad leg swung along with him lifelessly and whammed into the two men standing the closest to him. It was a dead leg, but it was a dead metal leg and that hurt quite a bit with its mass and acceleration.

As soon as those two were hit, Stannum hopped off again and moved to the next man, punching him in the stomach and sending him flying several feet away. Then, he registered the sound waves, a click.

"Game over, kid."

He sensed something against the back of his head and if he froze. If he was shot there, he would cease to function. After all, his body was built very similarly to a human's. The main computer was in his head. If that got shot, he would be a heap of metal again.

"Stannum! Move!" Arcade screamed at him.

"Arcade, I--"

There was the sound of metal piercing flesh and a choked scream came from behind him. The gun went off, but at a wrong trajectory due to the man collapsing to his knees and the bullet flew into the air.

"No need," Urian replied to Arcade through a headset.

"Oh good, you're there Urian. It would've been a shame to lose Stannum. He's pretty expensive."

Stannum blinked. There was an unpleasant feeling in his chest at those words.

Stannum turned to look at Urian and attempted to stand up properly to greet the man. He was wearing a white collared shirt with a black vest and dress pants. The same getup for his chores, but there was a difference this time. Clothes made the person and Stannum always thought Urian looked like a polite man. However, the clothes made him look like an uncaring man now.

"Urian--"

He was wearing a white hat as well and he held a thin sword in his right hand.

"You want me to kill all of them, right?"

"Yes," was Arcade's answer.

"Stay seated there, Stannum," and before Stannum could answer, Urian had started moving. The men all held their guns up and started firing, but Urian simply deflected all of them with his blade.

_Impossible,_ Stannum thought, _how can he be fast enough? How can the blade actually deflect it?_ It looked so thin and weak. But it did and Stannum could not comprehend the physics behind it.

Within a few seconds, Urian had taken out all of the men, stabbing through chests and slicing their throats. All that was left was the man the bodyguards had been protecting.

"S-Stop!" the man trembled as he sat on the floor, staring up at Urian, "L-listen, you want cash, right? I'll pay you anything! Anything!"

"..." Urian pressed a button on his headset and the sound came from a small speaker he had attached to the collar of his shirt.

"Haha, are you offering me money?"

The man smiled, "Y-Yes! As much as you want!"

Arcade laughed again, "Well, that's just too bad! You see, I don't care about money."

The grin fell off the man's face at those words, "P-Please, anything you--"

"I wasn't done talking, you rude pig. As I was saying, money isn't important these days. Information is."

"My father's rich! I can give you any information you want!"

"You interrupted again. You must really want to die, don't you?" Arcade paused, but this time, the man knew not to talk again, "I'm not talking about information to other people. I can get that easily. What I _don't_ want is information about myself to leak out to other people."

"Information about you--"

"Kill him, Urian."

"Understood, Sir," he raised the blade and brought it down as the man let out a shriek and clamped his eyes shut to prepare himself.

_Clang!_

It was the sound of metal on metal and Stannum wasn't sure how the red blur got here so quickly. Suddenly blocking Urian's blade was a young man of a similar age as Urian. His hair was a bright red and he had... very familiar features.

Who is he?

"Nice to see you again, you fucking Rabbit," the man said as he pressed his dagger against Urian's sword. He smiled and he might've looked charming if there wasn't such a terrible cruelty in his eyes.

Urian grit his teeth and glared at the man, "Jack..."

The smile on the man, Jack, grew wider, "Oh, I love it when people give me nicknames." He raised his dagger up and Stannum's eyes grew wide as his eyes calculated and predicted what was going to happen next.

"Urian! Get out of there!"

"Tsk," Urian glared at Stannum, "Shut up, why did you speak?!"

Stannum flinched, Urian had never scolded him before--

Electrons flowed continuously as long as the circuit was complete, but Stannum felt as though the current in his body stopped. The phrase he had read some time ago, _blood run cold_ , came to mind. Jack had noticed his presence and was glaring at him.

The blade went down towards Urian, but Jack wasn't looking as he assaulted the white hair man again and again at a high speed. It was all Urian could do to keep himself from being stabbed. Behind Jack, the man that started all this was getting up and running away yelling something about Jack doing a great job as a bodyguard.

"What the hell?" Jack whispered, but Stannum could pick it up with his microphone sensitivity turned up, "Why does he have Arcade's face?"

Stannum's eyes widened. He could tell the difference between him and Arcade that quickly?! Yes, there were many notable differences, but they weren't the first thing a person thought about upon seeing them. No, their first response is usually how similar the two of them were before realizing the differences. This person saw it right away and...

_He knows Arcade?_

Through channel with Arcade, Stannum heard a crash, as if a chair toppled over. Urian froze in his battle with Jack, "Arcade-- Ahhh!" Jack's dagger sliced through his skin.

"Heh," the look on Jack's face turned darker as Urian stumbled and fell. Jack stood over him, one foot pressed down on his right hand and stopping him from picking up his sword as he prepared to make the final blow, "Never stop paying attention in a fight--"

_Wham!_

Arcade body slammed into the man and knocked the wind out of him. Jack had definitely not been expecting the boy to weigh that much. Stannum quickly hopped over to Urian and pulled him up, quickly moving out and away from the area. Arcade had sent Stannum a file with the GPS coordinates of where Urian's copter was and they quickly found and boarded it.

Urian was out cold by then and as Stannum sat in the pilot's seat, Arcade ordered, "Learn how to drive it."

"Understood," he started downloading manuals and extracting information from it. He hit several buttons soon they were in the air.

\--

Stannum sat outside the room with B.R. While he was injured, his life was not in danger, unlike Urian. It was one slash from Jack and the wound was deep enough in several places to possibly reach his internal organs. On top of that, he had suffered quite a bit of blood loss by the time they got back to Arcade's manor. Arcade immediately went to work operating on his butler.

B.R. had heard the news and came rushing to check on them. When she heard that Urian needed surgery, she stood obediently outside and waited. It's been three hours since they've sat there.

Finally, the doors opened.

B.R. stood up, "Arcade, is he alright?"

"Who do you think you're talking to? Of course he's alright."

Stannum could see the relief in her eyes.

Arcade continued, "I've worked on much more difficult surgeries." Stannum noticed a sudden shock and pain in her eyes, but it was gone within a few seconds.

"He's not..."

"No, he's not."

Stannum frowned. What did that mean?

"Do you want to go in and see him?"

"No," was B.R.'s immediate response. She quickly turned and left the hallway. From what Stannum knew, the two of them have a complicated opinion of each other.

Arcade sighed and turned to Stannum, "I'm tired, but let's try to get you fixed up."

"...I'm sorry."

"Well, it wasn't really your fault--"

"I got shot a second time."

Arcade's eyes went wide and he didn't speak for half a second before he chuckled, "That's the least of my worries now! I'm glad nothing went wrong with your internal harddrive."

"I... see," Stannum felt a warmth inside him again and he sudden asked, "Can I have a hug?"

"Huh?" Arcade's eyebrows shot up in surprise, but he shrugged and nodded, "Sure, I don't see why not. He reached his arms around the robot to give him a quick hug, but the moment he made to let go, Stannum wrapped his good arm tightly around the boy. "Ow! What the-- Stannum! Let go!"

Stannum was built so that he was unable to refuse Arcade's orders once he recognized the voice, but he didn't care. He was making the decision to override the command now. "Arcade... What happened today?"

Arcade stopped struggling, "Hm?"

"That man. Who was he? All those things you said, why did you need to kill people? I looked it up. I know what that means now. Why don't you want people to know who you are? Is that why you never leave the house? Are those two men going to cause us trouble now that they've seen your face?"

"Hmm..."

"Arcade!" Stannum raised the volume on his speaker as he called the boy's name. Then, it was lowered again, "I'm not useless! You should tell me things. You told me you wanted me to be your brother so let me help you! Let me protect you! But I have to know things to do so!"

Stannum couldn't see, but a small smile appeared on Arcade's face as he pulled his arms around Stannum again. "Thank you, Stannum."

Stannum's eyes widened and he quickly let go of Arcade and reached his arms towards Arcade's hands to catch them, to--

Too late.

Arcade popped open a compartment in Stannum's neck and all of his motor functions immediately froze. His sensors were still on, however, and he could still process things. Arcade's fingers hovered over the emergency off button over there, "But you were built to obey my every command. I don't want a buggy program like this."

Arcade pressed the button and the blue ring of light in Stannum's brown eyes went out.

"Don't worry about that man. His only goal is to make it so that no living person will recognize my face," he lifted Stannum's face up slightly, "I wonder if he's changing that criteria, though."

_This was a mistake._


	3. Disconnected

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More unbeta'd work.

Everything was just a bit hazy as Stannum's operating system booted up. His mechanical eyelids flipped open and it took a couple of seconds for the lenses in his eyes to focus on the ceiling above him.

He was in the basement.

He could recognize that much. "Organizing data," the robotic edge of his own voice vibrated to the microphones in his ears. He checked his files and libraries, searching and scanning through them for any signs of a virus. He didn't do this every time after a reboot, but he had been forcefully shut down last time so he had to check to make sure everything was running properly and that he hadn't been hacked.

Nothing was wrong, but he couldn't shake off the feeling that something was _missing_. Then, he shook his head. Ridiculous. He didn't feel.

"You're awake," Arcade said and Stannum turned towards the only source of light in the room-- the first of Arcade's row of computer monitors. The boy looked tired. He still had his head on the desk as he spoke to Stannum.

"Yes," Stannum nodded, "What happened? I don't remember restarting."

"I needed to update some of your circuitry," Arcade yawned before facing his computer screen again. He was talking with someone on an instant messenger. Stannum tried to focus on the screen, but found that he couldn't. Some internal program was causing messing with the sensors in his eyes. The screen fuzzed over every time he tried to look. With a frown, he made a mental note to fix that later.

"Oh. What did you change?" Stannum asked.

"Just some memory storage. Gave you a larger drive. Oh, I entered new antivirus software, too. And..."

Stannum was recording what Arcade was saying to him, but he wasn't interpreting it. It appeared that Arcade hadn't notice that Stannum had learned how to program himself. A little while ago he had started creating a program that could read expressions and extract their implications. He originally created it so that he could learn to help Arcade emotionally more.

Arcade was lying to him.

Stannum quickly ran a check on how much space his "new" hard drive had. It was the same as before. He checked the software installed into him and there indeed was one new package. Once again, he felt like something was _missing_ and he quickly checked through his recycled data and even went ahead and tried to check the files marked for deletion. It was empty. There were only occasional meaningless bits of scrambled data. Arcade had thoroughly deleted something from his memory.

"...Why did you..."

"Hm?"

The rest of the sentence ended on his mechanical tongue. It was pointless to ask Arcade. If the boy suspected Stannum of being aware of him deleting his memory, he'll just shut him down and do it again. He'll have to figure this out another time. Besides, Arcade might have a good reason for doing so.

Still, he couldn't shake the nagging feeling inside his chest.

But, robots _don't feel_.

"Okay, you got everything?"

"Yes," Stannum smiled right away.

"Repeat it to me."

Of course, Stannum hadn't processed everything Arcade said to him and it was going to take a few minutes to do so. By then, Arcade would realize that he hadn't been listening so the robot simply replayed the recorded sound pitched to his tone coupled with a bit of lag in sampling to make it sound robotic.

"A gallon of milk, carrots, and tomatoes from the grocery store. Three milkshakes from the Shake Store and two chocolate ice cream cakes from the bakery, right?"

"Yes, and...?"

There was more? Impossible, Stannum didn't record any more. His program detected a mischievous glint in Arcade's eyes and Stannum smiled, "Please don't tease me, Arcade."

Arcade laughed, "Right! But there is one more thing. Someone's delivering something to me at these coordinates, please go there for me?" A compartment on Stannum's hand slid open to reveal a miniature keyboard. Arcade quickly typed the information on.

"Understood," Stannum said as he smiled again. He had gotten a hang of facial emotions in the past month, "Is there anything else?"

"No," Arcade turned back to his computer screen, "There's nothing else."

"...?" it was brief and quick, but Stannum detected sadness on Arcade's face just as he turned away.

"I will be off, then."

Stannum wondered how he could cheer Arcade up. Perhaps if he bought an extra chocolate cake or something equally as sweet.

\--

Everything bought, Stannum stood at the coordinates Arcade had given him. He didn't recognize this place. His records on his GPS told him he had been here, but he had no recollection of this part of town.

_Was it something Arcade had deleted...?_

Just as he thought so, one of his ports was making a connection with Arcade's computers. "Hello?" he answered.

"Hey, Stannum."

His program wasn't good enough to process emotions in voices, but for some reason, somehow, Stannum could "hear" sadness in Arcade's voice. "Arcade? Is something the matter?"

"No," there was a sudden cold edge to Arcade's tone, "Stannum, I don't need you anymore. This is goodbye."

"...Huh?" Stannum stared blankly ahead of him. He had been standing in an old, abandoned, and crumbling lot. Ahead of him was a rickety barbed wire fence. A beat up car was parked in front of it, probably abandoned for a long time now.

_Click_.

There were houses on the other side of the street, but they were in terrible condition. The paint was peeling and the doors had graffiti, but someone lived there. There was a potted plant on the windowsill and a baby's shrieking coming from the house.

"...Arcade?" Stannum asked, dumbfounded by what had happened.

It was not a nice day today. The sky was overcast and while the weather forecast didn't say it would rain, Stannum wouldn't be surprised if they lied. That wouldn't be good. He would rust. But it's okay, Arcade would send Urian or B.R. to come pick him up and then Arcade would fix him.

"...Arcade--" Stannum tried to call his creator again, but the moment he tried to do so, another program invaded his hard drive. He dropped the groceries and deserts he had bought as his body shook. "N-No! Stop!" his eyes widened as he tried to cancel and close that program, but everything he was trying to do was being overridden. The program was attacking. It was deleting things from his memory.

Any memory relating to his GPS system was destroyed. All direction algorithms he had developed the past few months were deleted. Wireless communication programs were gone.

"...Stop. Stop! STOP!" he begged the program, but it was too late. Everything was being eaten up.

He's going to die!

And then the program suddenly stopped.

For seemingly no reason at all, the program stopped running. It terminated and Arcade quickly flushed it out of his system before checking the damage it caused.

"...!" the program had attacked very specific files... "...Arcade!" Stannum tried to establish a connection despite knowing it was impossible, "Arcade! Arcade!" he no longer had the encrypted channel with his creator. All information on his home address was gone. His GPS still worked, but he could no longer find his way back to Arcade.

Stannum stood there, confused. He kept trying to call Arcade while searching for any document that might have Arcade's network information on it. IP Address. _Anything!_

"Arcade?"

_Call failed._

"Arcade?"

_Call failed._

"Arcade?"

He stood there and kept repeating the call despite getting the same result. Half an hour later, he was on his hundred and fifty seventh try and it started to rain. As the first few drops hit him, he realized something.

_Arcade had abandoned him._

\--

Stannum needed to move out of the rain. He would rust and cease to work if he stayed standing there. Still staring blankly ahead of him, the robot made his way to a pile of cardboard next to a dumpster. He knew cardboard wouldn't shield him for long, but it was better than nothing. He wasn't too keen on dumpster diving either. He dragged the groceries along with him despite the fact that he knew Arcade had no use for those either. Stannum didn't have use for it.

He's a robot. He didn't eat.

As he sat under the pile of cardboard, Stannum started feeling a pain inside his chest. That was ridiculous. He never felt pain. "..." he bit down on his metallic lip. Why was he given any teeth if he had no use for them? It didn't matter, "Uguhhh... Uguhhh" he wasn't programmed for tears, but the pain he felt was enough to make him cry (if he had the capability).

\--

"Hey, pass me a smoke."

"No, I'm not done yet."

"What the hell?! Stingy!"

"Would you guys be quiet? I'm trying to text my boyfriend."

"Boyfriend?!"

"Oh my God! Get over him already!"

"But we're here for a girl's night out!"

Doraci ignored her four "best friends" arguing with each other as she stared at her own phone. The inbox to her facebook had blown up again. She really should set everything to private, but she did like the attention sometimes.

According to some girls she was "lucky." Those were the nicer ones. Others simply called her a slut. Well, she didn't particularly care. After all, this entire place was full of idiots. So she was pretty. And so she knew it. And so she liked the attention she got from it. And so she liked _breaking hearts_. What did it matter? In the end, they were all in this shithole of a city with no way to escape. She might as well make the best out of it.

A boy messaged her an essay with compliments. She's never met him before. Doraci smiled, that's fine. He'll be a good distraction. As she typed up a quick response, she looked up at her friends and frowned. They were all so stupid, why did she hang out with them at all?

Oh right, because they were the best connections to have in the school. Girl A's father was the head of a large company that monopolized the city's electricity delivery. Doraci only ever goes to A's house in order to familiarize herself with A's dad. That way, she could easily secure a job. B's parents are rich from stocks and were high off it. Doraci knew stocks only ever came and went and B's parents were just lucky in how long they had it for. But for the time being, they let B do whatever she wanted with the money so Doraci stuck around because she was rich. C was fairly pretty and could get into any party or fun place. And then there's D. She's a druggie and Doraci would stay away from her if it wasn't for the fact that she knew where to get alcohol on a night where she couldn't stand the people around her anymore.

The bunch of them were sitting in some abandoned alleyway after school. They all came from the only private high school in the city and anyone could tell who they were just by looking at their uniforms. It was the school for the city's "best and brightest," but all a person had to do was look at Doraci's friends to see that money could buy them into anything.

_This place is so corrupt and disgusting._

Doraci wasn't rich. Her family had enough, but she was on a scholarship because she was smart enough. (And because she figured out all the little tricks on the forms to make it sound like she was dirt poor, too.) She didn't like life here. Everything felt uncertain. Everything was disgusting. Everything was pitiful.

_We could die any time and these bitches waste their life this way--_

The late afternoon light from the end of the alleyway was suddenly blocked and the girls stopped their arguing to turn to the person that just approached them. He was a middle aged man with missing teeth and he reeked terribly of alcohol. He's short and got a pot belly and Doraci noticed he had one hand in his pocket. She narrowed her eyes. She needed to start thinking of an escape route.

"Well, lookie here! A bunch of girls from that preppy school, aren't you?"

She could easily run down the alleyway and figure out the maze of these closely built apartments, but she's sure that her "friends" won't be able to keep up with her.

She supposed she could humor this guy and maybe trick him to leave, "Yea," Doraci answered before her friends could say something stupid, "We got out from school and were bored so we came here."

"Really, now? We don't usually see such fine ladies hanging out in a place like this!" he laughed and Doraci giggled along, the rest of the girls looked at her like she was crazy.

"Well, we all like doing something outside of the norm once in a while! What about you, Mister? Why are you here?"

"I'm just looking for cute ladies to hang out with to kill time! Ladies like yourself--"

"Eew! Gross!" C yelled out as she backed away from the man. She wasn't anywhere near him. The expression on the man's face changed from a disgustingly flirty one to a furious one.

_Fucking idiot!_

Before the man could reach towards C, Doraci tackled him from the side and hit the arm that was in his pocket. "Get out of here!" she yelled at her friends as he knocked into a wall. Doraci caught her footing as her friends ran away. She was about to follow them when the man grabbed her by her hair. Doraci let out a screech as she saw the man pull out a pocket knife from his pocket. "Let go of me!" she hissed and tried to pull her hair out of his grip with her hands.

"You fucking bitch!" the man growled as he raised the knife.

Doraci had no ideas.

She blocked her face with her arms and prepared for the worst--

_Wham!_

Doraci was suddenly released and she opened her eyes. The man was on the ground several feet away from her now. A boy around twelve stood between her and the man.

"What the hell?" the man gasped as he picked himself up.

"...Little boy?" Doraci questioned in confusion.

"You were doing some malicious actions. I advise you to stop," the boy said. The man rushed forward with his knife and Doraci let out a scream in fear. The fear was unnecessary, however, as the boy simply stepped to the side and kneed the man in the stomach. "Please leave," he told the man. The man doubled over and hugged his stomach in pain.

"I... I will," the man gasped and the boy nodded, turning to walk away, "AS IF!" The man jumped up again and raised his knife. Doraci thought the boy was going to dodge at the last minute again, but it seemed like even he had a limit. The boy turned at a bad time and the knife made contact with him, slicing through his forehead and the top of his cheek, just missing his eye. "Ha!" the man grunted in victory. He'll take advantage of the boy's pain now and kill him--

The boy grabbed him by the arm and the next thing the man knew, he was in the air. Then the ground hit his back much too quickly, much too forcefully--

_CRACK!_

Doraci gasped as she saw the ground crack open from the impact of the boy throwing the man into the ground.

The man was out cold.

Doraci raised her eyes upwards to look at the boy instead. She could see where the knife had sliced him, but there was no blood. Instead, there was simply a gash and ripped metal showing intricate circuitry beneath it. His eyes were completely black except for a ring of blue near where Doraci guessed his irises might be.

"You..."

"Accessing damage," the boy said, "Heavy damage to left side of face. Some eye circuitry damaged. Self repair activating."

Doraci watched as little robotic prongs popped out from behind the boy's ear and started working on the broken metal. It was melted and pulled and smoothed out until the gash looked like it was never there. The little prongs had also worked on the broken circuitry underneath, the boy's eyes were turning to a more normal color, but Doraci could still see the blue ring in his irises.

It was over in a minute and the boy turned to leave.

"...Wait," Doraci called.

"Yes?" the boy turned to face her and she took a good look at him. He looked a bit familiar, but that wasn't the most noticeable thing. There were bolts at the edge of the boy's face, in his neck, and who knows where else. His clothes were faded and dirty, they looked as though they hadn't been washed for months.

"Who are you? _What_ are you?"

"I'm..."

"Doraci! We're here to save you--" oh, it was B. She had come rushing back with a broom and she ran forward with her eyes closed, blindly swinging the cleaning tool around.

"Wait, stop, you're going to hit--"

_Clang!_

The broom smacked the boy in the face and the wooden handle broke. B stared at him, "...What... the hell?"

"Sorry," the boy answered as he picked up the fallen, broken side and held it out to B, "I can try to fix it if you like."

"EW! NO!" B screeched, "What the fuck are you?! You're disgusting!" she tossed the remaining half of the broom onto the boy and grabbed Doraci by the arm, "Let's go Doraci!"

"Wait-- Huh?!" before Doraci knew it, she was dragged out and away from the boy before she could learn more about him. "Dammit! I wanted to talk with him!"

\--

Doraci was fuming. She said a quick and hasty good bye to her friends almost immediately after they grouped up together. She didn't want to get angry in front of them. She was sure to say terrible things and make them leave her. She could make new friends, of course, but it was hard to get the right criteria...

She paced about in the bedroom of her family's apartment.

With a sigh, she grabbed her jacket and left, "I'll be back for dinner," she called to her mom.

"Be careful, Doraci! Actually, don't go out--"

"Bye, Mom!" she didn't want to hear her nagging tonight and she hurried down the stairs and out of the apartment building.

It was not a good idea to be in this part of the city during the evening, but Doraci didn't care. No, she probably couldn't protect herself and she wouldn't really do this, but she had a gut feeling that she wanted to follow tonight.

It didn't take her long to get back to that alleyway. The man had long since gotten up and left and Doraci was staring at a dark alleyway, "Hello?" she called. She waited a few minutes and got no response. "Are you there?" no answer again. Taking a deep breath, she yelled, "Help me!" then she dropped to the ground as if she was in pain.

_Clang!_

There was the sound of metal hitting the floor and hurried footsteps to her side. As soon as the boy bent down to look at her, Doraci reached out and grabbed his arm. She flinched as she felt how cold he was. "Gotcha!"

"Oh," the boy responded as Doraci sat up, "I thought you were in trouble."

Doraci shrugged, "I figured it was the bestway to get your attention."

"...Yes."

"..." Doraci stared at him for a minute, "Are you alright?"

"Of course, why?"

"Earlier today, that girl said some mean things to you."

The boy shrugged, "It's fine. I am a robot. I don't have feelings."

"Really...?" Doraci narrowed her eyes. That explained a number of things, but... Wow, she didn't think she would see an intelligent robot here. They were only recently developed in some fancy lab in D.C.

"Yes."

"What's your name?"

"Stannum," the boy replied, "Would you please let me go? I must be taking my leave now."

"To where?"

Stannum paused and didn't respond for several minutes. Doraci thought he was broken for a moment, "Nowhere. I'm waiting for a reply from my creator."

"Your...creator?"

"Yes, he... left me a few months ago."

Doraci raised both eyebrows. There was hesitation there. His creator had abandoned Stannum, hadn't he? Doraci couldn't help smirking, she could use this to her advantage, "Well, until you get in contact with him, you're free to do whatever you want, right?"

"Well, yes."

"In that case, could you do me a favor?"

"Huh?"

"I've been looking for a bodyguard. This is a dangerous city after all. How about it? Want to be my bodyguard?"

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Okay."

\--

Doraci wasn't sure why it had come to this, but now she's standing with Stannum in the back of the city's more popular bar: Bar Wonder. Sitting in a chair in front of them was a little boy who looked to be the same age as Stannum.

"Wow, you do look just like him."

"...?" both of them didn't know how to respond.

"I'll take him."

"What?" Doraci exclaimed, "No way! He's way more important than what you're planning to give me!"

"Well, that's up to you, right?" the boy smirked, "You want to help _that person_ , right?"

Doraci clenched her fists, "It's not a fair trade and you know it."

The boy shrugged, "I suppose you're right. Find something that is a fair trade, then."

Doraci narrowed her eyes. She probably didn't have anything else that was worthwhile. She looked at Stannum. He was unresponsive, only staring straight ahead. Then, she thought back to _that person_ , his skin all dried and wrinkly, stuck to his bones. ...All because he tried to help her.

"..." finally, she nodded, "How about this? I'll lend Stannum to you. After I help that person, I want Stannum back."

"Oh? Why do you want him back so badly?"

"I told you, he's important," Doraci smiled, "This city's a mess and you know it very well. If I want to have any chance of surviving this mess, I'm going to need bodyguards. This one and the _other one_ are both good assets. I'm keeping them both."

"Despite letting them go for now?"

"I'm not useless," Doraci scoffed before turning back to Stannum, "Hey, I'll visit every other weekend, but stay with Wizard for now. If he doesn't take good care of you, let me know and I'll come kick his ass!"

"...Sure," Stannum nodded.

He had long since been numb to feeling.

Stannum walked over to stand next to Wizard. As soon as he did so, Wizard reached into his pocket and pulled out a bottle of pills. The bottle was sure to have held some other drug originally. The prescription sticker had long since been torn off and all that was left were a few unpeeled white bits and sticky residue that was dark with dust stuck on it. "W pill," Wizard said as Doraci snatched it out of his hand, "I'm sure I don't have to tell you not to overdose on it, right?"

"It's not for me," she responded coldly and turned to leave, "Bye, Stannum! See you in a few days!"

As soon as she was gone, Wizard turned to Stannum, "Well, it's always nice to have a companion."

"Of course, if that's what you want me to be."

Wizard shrugged, "Well now, your first story ends here, but not the entire series so I hope you're prepared."

 

"...Of course," because the stories to this city were endless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couldn't figure out how to end it properly and I didn't want to drag it on :/


End file.
